


Petal Speak

by DachOsmin



Category: Silver in the Wood - Emily Tesh
Genre: 5+1 Things, Five Stages of Grief, Language of Flowers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:15:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21949447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DachOsmin/pseuds/DachOsmin
Summary: As Tobias travels the world with Silver’s mother, he begins to suspect that the flowers and plants he encounters along the way are trying to tell him something.
Relationships: Tobias Finch/Henry Silver
Comments: 9
Kudos: 35
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Petal Speak

**Author's Note:**

  * For [farevenasdecidedtouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/farevenasdecidedtouse/gifts).



**1\. Harebells**

Tobias can’t say when it starts.

The long months after the tragedy of the spring equinox are a blur; he spends them sleeping, the air around him sour with sweat and the smell of the sickroom. When he wakes Mrs. Silver is there, and there is no recrimination on her face. He wishes there were. His mind is a divided thing, like the raised beds of a strict garden. There is before and there is after, and after is ash and listlessness and the twin thorns of grief and guilt stabbing at him as he tries to sleep.

He takes no notice of the world around him, and so he cannot say what flowers are blooming outside his windows, and whether they are seasonal, or of a type known to grow in the shadow of the wood.

The day he first notices the flowers is the day he finally leaves the manor with Mrs. Silver, in search of a nixie causing trouble in a village far away. Mrs. Silver has made all the preparations: called the coach, packed their belongings, and shut up the house. Tobias trails in her wake like a ghost that’s not yet realized how to part with its body.

The carriage arrives at midmorning. Mrs. Silver strides outside to greet the driver and oversee the loading of their luggage; Tobias wanders out to stare at the wheels that will take him away from the wood, from Fabian, from Silver.

He blinks. There, in the shadow of the carriage wheels, are tiny flowers.

They are small things; through the fog of his grief and his memories he would not have noticed them save for the brilliant blue of their petals. He takes an unsteady step closer, and sees that that the fragile stems have shoved their way up through cracks in the paving stones of the drive. He leans down and plucks one absentmindedly; the stem breaks off cleanly with a quiet sigh. The flower is dwarfed by his hands. Fragile oval petals the size of his nails, dyed a pallid bluish purple, the color of dawn or dusk. Harebells.

“Finch!” Mrs. Silver is calling. He stands and swallows the tightness in his throat. As he ducks into the coach he tucks the harebell into the frayed pocket of his waistcoat, and thinks no more of it.

**2\. Ivy**

They deal with the nixie. Tobias has vague notions of drifting back to the wood in the aftermath, but Mrs. Silver will have none of it, and Tobias finds himself with a room in her townhouse where he spends his nights, and a job as her assistant to occupy his days.

The plants find their way into both.

He wakes one night in late august to find his room filled to the brim with ivy. The moon is full, and in deference to the sultry heat of high summer he had left his window open. Moonlight spills into the room as if to quench the heat, and in its wake comes the ivy.

Tobias blinks at it. The leaves are silvered like the scales of fish, and the vines cast tatted lace shadows over the floorboards. As he watches, one tendril creeps onto his coverlet and butts at his hand like an affectionate cat. Some part of his mind knows this is strange and unnatural, but the leaves are soft against his skin, and their rustlings in the night breeze sound like whispers, or sighs.

When he wakes the ivy is gone, save for a single lobe clutched in the palm of his hand. He toys with it over breakfast, until the leaf is bruised and creased into little pieces that dot the white tablecloth. Once the leaf is well and truly shredded, he looks up to see Mrs. Silver giving him a level stare, but mercifully she does not comment.

**3\. Rhododendron**

He summons the courage to mention the plants to Mrs. Finch just after Hallowmas. Mrs. Silver has taken them north, further north than Tobias has ever been, in search of a vampire that steals children from their cradles. He feels the cold in his bones, and the wind tastes strange here, full of salt and snow. The locals assure them through their thick accents that the snow is unseasonable this early in the year, but it’s cold comfort as the chill leaks through Tobias’ boots and gloves and lingers there.

They’ve just finished a breakfast of lukewarm porridge at the village inn when Tobias says without preamble, “the plants are following me.”

Mrs. Silver does not look up from her newspaper, but he can still hear her sigh. “The plants are not following you. Plants do not follow people.”

He opens his mouth to argue and thinks better of it. Instead, he stands from the table and marches over to the inn’s exit. He takes a moment to brace himself and then wrenches the door open and steps out into the blasting cold.

When he re-enters the inn, Mrs. Silver is still reading the paper. She only looks up when he flings a handful of bright pink flowers onto the table before her, their tissue-thin petals wet with clumps of snow. “I am not,” he says quietly, “imagining it.”

Mrs. Silver blinks. Puts down her newspaper. “Well, that is odd. Those-“

“-were not blooming last night.”

She frowns. “The snow-“

“-is a handbreadth deep, and has been since we’ve arrived.”

She picks up a sprig and examines it closely, fingers peeling back the pink petals to examine the stamens and the leaves. Her brow creases as she examines each flower one by one. “Sympathetic magic perhaps? But no, that wouldn’t…” Her frown deepening, she sets the flowers down again and looks up at Tobias. “What type of flower are these, anyway?”

Tobias stares at the bloody pink of the petals. “I don’t know.”

That gets an arched eyebrow. “You don’t know?”

He shrugs helplessly. “These didn’t grow in my wood.”

“Hmph.” She studies them a moment longer, and then snaps them down on the table with a decisive flick of her wrist. “Off to see a friend, then.”

***

The friend is mercifully close by, but even the quick walk down the street sets Tobias’ teeth clacking. Mrs. Silver stops in front of one of the small shops ringing the village green and lets out a quiet sound of satisfaction when she tries the door and finds it open. Tobias glances into the shop front windows as he waits for her to stamp the snow from her boots: the glass is muggy with condensation, but through it Tobias can make out cheery golden light and the elegant forms of flowers in dainty vases and squat pots.

He follows Mrs. Silver in and the heat hits him all over all at once, delicious and filled with the scent of growing things.

“Mr. McCray! So good to see you!” Mrs. Silver says to the man at the counter.

Mr. McCray is a wizened little thing that brings to mind the stump of a cherry tree. The wisps of hair he has left are a dull silver that match the fixtures of the spectacles perched low on his nose. “And you, Mrs. Silver.” His voice sounds to Tobias like the whistle of a steam engine. “What manner of devilry are you pursuing today?”

She sniffs. “I am pursuing a puzzle,” she says, and produces Tobias’ flowers from the pocket of her overcoat with a flourish.

Mr. McCray takes them from her in his twig-like fingers and peers down at them. “Curious. Very curious.” He looks up to favor Mrs. Silver with a frown, which deepens when he glances over to appraise Tobias. “Where did you say you found these?”

Tobias realizes with a start that the question is meant for him. “…Around,” he says meekly.

Mr. McCray seems distinctly unimpressed by this answer. His eyes shift to the window, outside of which the wind has begun to howl in earnest with the onset of night. “I ask,” he says at last, peering down at the petals, “because these are flowers of a variant of _rhododendron ponticum_ which only grows in southern Tajikistan.”

“Ahhh…”

Mrs. Silver interrupts. “A lady friend of mine keeps a hothouse outside of Inverness.”

Mr. McCray raises an eyebrow at that. “Do give her my card, I would love a fresh supply of flowers in the winter months.” He traces his gnarled thumb over one of the rhododendron petals. “Although not these in particular, of course.”

“Why ‘of course?’” Tobias asks.

“Hmm? Oh, they wouldn’t sell. I cater to the young ladies about town; they attach all sorts of particular meanings to the flowers in their posies.”

Tobias stares down at the bloody pink of the petals. “What do these mean?”

Mr. McCray clears his throat. “It’s a bunch of bollocks really, but you know how little girls can be. Rhododendron flowers are supposed to spell mortal danger. And the leaves are poisonous in any case; might poison one of their little spaniels, could you imagine?”

“That’s very interesting,” Mrs. Silver murmurs, and looks at Tobias. “Wouldn’t you say so, Mr. Finch?”

Luckily, he’s spared from having to reply when the vampire they’ve been looking for bursts through the window of the shop.

**4\. Dock, Chamomile, Cudweed, and Snowdrops**

They deal with the vampire, although it takes Mrs. Silver’s hairpin, Tobias’ pistol, and a great deal of swearing to do it. As they stand over the body in the aftermath, a handful of tiny heather flowers flutter in through the broken window, and Mrs. Silver gives Tobias a very pointed look.

Tobias manages to avoid the subject until after they’ve skipped town. He holds his breath as they board a train south but mercy of mercies, Mrs. Silver promptly falls asleep. Indeed, he thinks he’s managed to avoid the subject altogether until an afternoon some weeks later at a tea parlour in a small village just outside Carlisle, when Mrs. Silver abruptly flips her gazette down on the table and levels a narrow-eyed stare at him. “Don’t think we’re not talking about it.”

The parquet tiles of the floor are suddenly very interesting. “What,” he asks, “are we not talking about?”

Her snort is distinctly unamused. “The plants, Mr. Finch.”

“The plants,” he repeats, and off she goes.

“The rhododendron and the vampire-! It was a warning! As if the plants knew!”

He sighs. “As you told me, ‘Plants do not know things.’”

“They don’t. But people do. And this wasn’t your doing; there’s no magic left in you.” She is very still, and he finds he’s holding his breath, hoping she leaves matters there. But no, Mrs. Silver is her son’s mother; she has never, ever, been content to let things lie. She takes a deep breath. “I wonder,” she says, “if this could have been _his_ doing.”

He flees from the table. He does not expect how it hurts, to hear his own suspicions put to words. His own hopes. Her voice is calling him back, but he ignores it; he cannot face her now. He bursts out into the cold, into the snow, and runs away from the buildings like a mad thing until he’s alone, and then collapses to his knees in the snow, under the shadow of a fir tree.

And all the grief and pain comes pouring out in animal cries that he cannot stop. For the loss of the wood, of the only home he can remember. For the flowers, each a bitter reminder of what he no longer can do or can be. And for the terrible, treasonous hope, that if the flowers are not his doing, they may be someone else’s. They may be Henry’s.

Eventually, his tears run out, and he is left with nothing but the sound of his ragged breathing, the hollow emptiness in his chest, and the freezing numbness in his knees where the snow has soaked through his trousers.

He has to go back inside. He swallows the bitterness in his throat and resolves to apologize to Mrs. Silver and put behind him the mad fancy that there is hope left for what they’ve lost.

He opens his eyes, and cannot help the gasp that breaks from his lips.

He’s encircled by flowers.

They press up through the snow in a riotous thicket, brilliant blooms and hardy leaves undaunted by the snow or the cold. There are cheery chamomiles, their golden heads dressed in bonnets of white petals. There are hardy stalks of dock and cudweed, and beside them the waxy leaves and starry seed pods of cudweed. There are other, stranger plants that he cannot name or place, in all colors of the rainbow. But most numerous of all are the simple snowdrops that herald spring’s return.

Tobias feels his eyes prick again with tears, but these are not the tears of sorrow.

He plucks the flowers from the snow, one by one, his fingers as gentle as he can make them. He dusts the snow from their petals, and carries the bouquet back inside. He offers it to Mrs. Silver; she takes it reverently, as if she were afraid her touch alone could bruise the petals.

“I think,” Tobias says at last, “we should head home.”

**5\. Chorchorus, Chickweed, and Lesser Celandine**

The plants become bolder the closer they get to Greenhollow. There are more of them; they grow thicker and faster, until by the time they stop to change trains at London the flowers are flinging themselves up around his feet like a pack of overexcited spaniels.

He stops in the bookshop of the train station and buys a book that claims to detail the language of the flowers. “For the missus,” he says, blushing, and all the shop girls coo at him. Once he’s escaped from their attentions he stops in the shadow of the station clock tower and plucks a single flower from each of the shoots curling up around his feet. He looks them up one by one, and feels a peculiar lightness in his chest.

_Corchorus, for impatience of absence_

_Chickweed, for rendezvous_

_Lesser Celandine, for joy to come._

**6\. Rose**

On the night of the equinox, Tobias enters the wood with only moonlight for company, and exits with Henry at his side.

After Henry has been suitably reunited with and embraced by his mother, Tobias falls in step beside him. “You’ve been sending me messages,” he murmurs.

Henry’s lips turn up into a smile. “I wasn’t sure if I was, or if it was only in dreams. You got them, then?”

“Yes,” Tobias says. “The harebells and the ivy and the bloody rhododendron and all the others.”

Henry’s eyes go distant, as if he’s remembering something that happened a long time ago. “My aunt had a copy of the flowers and their meanings in her library when I was small, I think,” he says at last. “I liked to look at the pictures.”

Tobias can’t help his rueful smile. “It took me a while to understand what they all meant.”

Henry looks at him with a smile. “What about this one?”

Tobias feels the telltale tug of a plant batting at his foot, and looks down to see a single red rose blooming in the spring moonlight. He reaches down to touch it; the petals are velvet-soft against the pads of his fingers. He can’t hold back his laugh, of joy and wonder and hope renewed. “This one,” he says, “I think I know.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide ;)


End file.
